A/N: It's been a fun ride. I'm kinda sorry to see it end. A big thanks to the folks at the 30 Kisses LiveJournal community for a really fun concept (even if I messed with it by choosing a non-romantic pair).

Rating: T (minor language)

When dealing with a problem, there exists a frequent tendency toward complexification that can lead toward solutions that are far more burdensome than the problem.

--"The KISS Principle," Wikipedia

#30 Kiss

There was something surreal about watching his little sister's high school graduation ceremony. It had been two years since Jounouchi's own graduation, which somehow managed to simultaneously feel like a lifetime ago and just yesterday, and now there was Shizuka, dressed in a dark green cap and gown, filing into the gymnasium with her classmates. His baby sister, whom he'd kissed on the top of her little pink cap the day she was born. How was it possible she was—or would be in a matter of moments anyway—a high school graduate?

Beside him, his mother beamed proudly. On his other side sat Honda, who had gotten leave just to be here for the graduation, and beside him, Yugi's grandfather, who had closed the shop for the occasion. Anzu had called the night before, full of apologies for not being able to come in from New York and Otogi had sent a dozen roses. Even Bakura had sent a card and most surprising of all, there was a letter from Yugi that he'd written last November and mailed to Gramps before he and Professor Hawkins had left Cairo for a six-month archaeological expedition somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Egypt. They were completely incommunicado and would be until May, but he'd actually thought of sending her a letter before he'd left and both Shizuka and Jounouchi had been touched.

Of the circle of friends Jounouchi had introduced Shizuka to nearly four years ago at the Battle City tournament, only Mai had failed to somehow mark the occasion. Jounouchi tried not to think about that too much, but he couldn't help but feel disappointed. She'd not contacted him since the whole Doma mess in California and he was to the point of giving up expecting to ever hear from her again, but he'd actually hoped maybe she'd write Shizuka, seeing as how they'd bonded during their brief time together at the Battle City finals. He refused to let her continued absence get to him, however. Everyone else had thought of Shizuka, and Jounouchi was ridiculously pleased by that. His friends—his family—had embraced his sister as one of their own.

After the ceremony and the obligatory twenty billion pictures their mother insisted on taking, there was a huge party back at her house. Jounouchi spent much of his time keeping not only Honda but several of the boys from Shizuka's class from gluing themselves to her side. He had to give up playing bodyguard, however, when she and many of her classmates left to attend her friend Mariko's party that evening. Yugi's grandfather left not long afterwards for the long trip back to Domino so he could open the game shop the next morning. Jounouchi and Honda were both staying another day and were at the kitchen table playing a game of Go when Gramps left.

"Mutou-san is a lovely man," Jounouchi's mother said as she dried some dishes. "It was so nice of him to come all the way to Tokyo just for Shizuka's graduation. It makes me wish your grandparents were still alive."

"Yeah, Gramps is a great guy," Jounouchi agreed, not looking up from his game.

"That was so cool of him to invite Shizuka to move in with you guys while she's at the university," Honda said, then looked up at Jounouchi's mother. "Do you need any help, Kawai-san?"

"No, no, you boys enjoy your game."

"Yugi's mom doesn't bother coming to Domino anymore now that Yugi's not there—not that she was around much even when he was—and Gramps said there was no point in her room going to waste," Jounouchi said, capturing three of Honda's stones.

Honda leaned forward and said quietly so Jounouchi's mother couldn't hear, "Dude, I think he just has a crush on her."

"Shut up, you pervert!" Jounouchi hissed, slapping Honda away.

While it was true that Gramps wasn't above ogling young women, Jounouchi couldn't afford to be anything other than grateful toward the old man. Ever since running into their father in that coffee shop last spring, he'd been paranoid about Shizuka moving to Domino, almost to the point of trying to talk her out of it. The more he thought about her living in the dorms, the less he liked it. He kept picturing her walking to the campus one night and running into their dad after he'd lost at the track or something, and the thought nearly paralyzed him. When Yugi's grandfather had offered Shizuka Yugi's mom's room for a rent so low it was almost insulting, Jounouchi had almost wept in relief and gratitude. The game shop always felt like a safe haven, and with Shizuka living in the next room instead of across town on campus, he felt more in control.

His mother, on the other hand, was still not happy about the arrangement. Putting down her towel, she sighed. "It was definitely a very generous offer," she said, and Jounouchi groaned inwardly, already knowing what was coming, "but I still wonder if University of Tokyo or Keio University wouldn't have been better choices."

Jounouchi leaned back in his seat wearily. "We've been over this Ma. First, it's Shizuka's decision and she wants to go to Domino. Second, if you have a way to pay for Tokyo or Keio or any of the five million other places you'd rather her go, I'm all ears."

She bit her lip, looking down at the counter and picking up her towel again. "I know I've failed to provide for her education, Katsuya, you needn't remind me."

"I, uh, gotta use the men's room," Honda said suddenly, getting up from his seat and retreating quickly, leaving Jounouchi alone with his mother.

"You haven't failed," Jounouchi ground out. "You got debts from all her medical expenses. I know that, and Shizuka does, too. If anyone's failed her, it's Dad. But the fact of the matter is, with me working at the student union at Domino U, she gets a cut rate and between that and her scholarships, she can afford it. That's the deal. That's been the deal since she decided she wanted to go to med school, so there's really no point in going round and round on it, is there? And it's a little late anyway. Her boxes are packed and she moves in a week."

"I know, I know," his mother said, slapping her hand down on the counter in frustration. "I know all that, Katsuya, I do! But even if she's living in that game shop with you, you can't be with her all the time. It's only a matter of time before she runs into your father, and…." She trailed off, shaking her head and turning away.

Jounouchi got up from his seat and went over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I've been afraid of the same thing, ever since we ran into him last year, but—"

She turned toward him so suddenly his hand was jerked off her shoulder. "You what?"

Jounouchi swallowed. "Shizuka didn't tell you." It wasn't a question.

"Are you telling me you… she… What happened?"

"Nothing, Ma, okay, it was no big deal. In fact, that's probably why Shizuka never said anything. He saw us in a coffee shop, talked to us for like five seconds and then we took off, that's it."

"Don't you lie to me, Jounouchi Katsuya!" she cried. "I know your father better than that. What did he say to her?"

"He didn't say nothing, Ma," he insisted. "You think I'd let him talk to her?"

That was clearly the wrong thing to say. "See, that's exactly what I'm talking about, Katsuya! You can't be with her twenty-four hours a day. When she's visiting you, yes, but when she's living there? Eventually she's going to run into him and you won't be there to keep him from talking to her. What then?"

He folded his arms and glared at his mother. "Listen, Ma, I have been protecting Shizuka my entire life. When that bastard ranted about how she was messing up his perfect little life, I'm the one who held her and told her it wasn't true. Not you, me. When he came home completely plastered and started screaming swear words at the top of his lung, I'm the one she'd find to talk to her so she wouldn't have to listen anymore. Me. Until the day you took her away from me. And now that she's back in my life again, you can bet your ass I'm gonna keep protecting her and I don't need you to tell me how to do it, okay?" Angry, he turned away. "Tell Honda I'm in the guest room when he gets back. I'm going to bed." Without waiting for her to reply, he stormed out of the kitchen.

Honda had an early train the next morning and Jounouchi was returning from seeing him off at the train station when Shizuka poked her head out of her bedroom door, her hair sticking up at odd angles indicating she'd either just woken up or she'd decided to adopt Yugi's hairstyle.

"I missed saying good-bye to Honda, didn't I?" she asked, disappointed.

"Yeah," Jounouchi confirmed, "but we'll see him in a couple of months."

She smiled. "I can't wait! I can't believe we're all going to America for a tournament and we'll finally get to see everyone again."

"I dunno, Sis, I'm still not sure taking a couple weeks off a month into your first semester is the greatest plan."

"It'll be fine," she said, dismissing his worries with a wave of her hand. Opening the door further, she beckoned him in. "Come here a sec, I wanna talk to you."

He followed her into her room. It always made him think of that very first videotape she'd sent him when she was nine. It looked different, of course, no longer decorated with pink frills and stuffed animals but rather with posters of boy bands and movie stars, and now with boxes she was packing for her move to Domino, but even so, her room still never failed to evoke an image of a nine-year-old with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, smacking on a piece of chewing gum. "Looks like you're all ready for the big move," he said, touching one of the boxes with his toe.

"Pretty much," she replied. "It's hard to narrow down everything I wanna take, you know? I don't wanna flood poor Gramps's house with all my junk."

"Are you kidding? He'll love having a girl around," Jounouchi said, then grimaced as he remembered what Honda had said.

Shizuka sat down on her bed and peered up at him. "So Big Brother, can you explain to me why when I got home last night Mom went into a tirade about us running into Dad last year?"

He sighed. "How was I supposed to know you didn't tell her already? You tell her everything!"

"Are you nuts?" she protested. "The way she obsesses about me seeing him, I'm gonna just come out and tell her that I did? She was already freaked enough about me moving there without hearing about that."

"Yeah, well she doesn't have to worry about that with me around. I can protect you."

Shizuka folded her arms. "You're as bad as she is, you know that? It's not that big a deal to begin with!"

"Oh yeah, right. You were only upset for two days afterwards, and that was with me there. What if you run into him alone, Shizuka?"

"So, what if I do? What's he gonna do, tell me I'm worthless? I already know he thinks that!"

"Who knows what he'll do?" Jounouchi said darkly. "And I'm not really crazy about finding out."

"I don't care," she insisted, standing up to face him, "'cause you know what? The worst thing that could ever happened to me because of him already happened—I lost you. But now I have you back and he can't take you away ever again, so what can he do? Call me worthless? Say I messed up his life? Hit me?"

Jounouchi closed his eyes and clenched his fists tightly at his side. "I'll kill him if he does."

"You're not helping!"

"Well, what do you want me to say, Shizuka?" he demanded, opening his eyes to look at her again. "I can't make him go away!"

"Why not? God, Katsuya, think about it! We've spent our whole lives trying to figure out how to get around Dad. Our whole lives. Everything was about him. How to avoid him, how to not piss him off, how to ignore the awful things he says. And then…." She looked up at him, a pained expression in her eyes. "And then Mom took me away from you, all to keep me away from Dad. I couldn't visit you because of Dad. And now we're all panicked about me living in Domino because of Dad. I'm sick of it!"

"But we can't do anything about it 'cause he's in Domino and you'll be in Domino. That's just the way it is!"

Frustrated, she flopped back down on the bed again. "This is so stupid."

Just as frustrated, he kicked at one of her boxes, knocking it over by accident, sending a pile of sweaters flying.

"Oh great, now I get to re-pack," she grumbled.

"Never mind, I got it," he muttered back. Bending down, he scooped up the sweaters and threw them back into the box."

"Don't just throw them in there, you have to fold them," she instructed.

"Fine." He pulled them out again and folded them, placing them back into the box more carefully this time. When he had the last sweater returned to the box, he folded down the top. "Winter clothes" was scrawled across the top in thick black marker, and then something else underneath. Scratching his head, he looked at the four Roman letters: K I S S. "Kiss?" he read in English, puzzled. "Why did you write 'kiss' in English on your box?"

"Not kiss," she replied. "K-I-S-S. It's an English acronym. It stands for 'keep it simple, stupid.'"

"Uh, okaaaay," he said, not any less confused. "And you wrote it on your box because…?"

"Because I was having trouble packing. I wanted to bring my whole life with me to Domino, but I don't really need everything. So I wrote that on the boxes to remind myself to simplify." She sat up and gave him a thoughtful look. "You know what, that's the whole problem."

"What is?"

She shook her head slowly. "We don't keep it simple. Our whole lives have been this one long convoluted solution to a simple problem: Dad. To the point where the cure is worse than the disease, you know? We need to… 'keep it simple, stupid,'" she said in English.

"And how do we do that?"

"We don't let him control us. He's out of our lives, right? So let's not let him control us anymore. I'll come to Domino and go to med school and we'll be together and it'll all be good and there's not a damn thing he can do about it. Simple."

Jounouchi took a big breath. "I wish it really were that simple."

"It can be."

He nodded. "Okay, I hear you. We're gonna enjoy this. It's our time, Sis."

She smiled. "Yeah. Just think, Big Brother. It's been almost eleven years since we've lived together. We've got a lot of annoying each other to catch up on."

"I think you've already started," he smirked.

"I've started? I'm not the one chasing off all your friends who happen to be the opposite sex," she said, her arms folded.

"Yeah, well get used to it, 'cause I'm not having no half-wit punks hanging all over you."

"Well, no problem then, since you're the only half-wit punk I know," she shot back.

"Oh, that's it," he cried. Leaping at her, he tackled her, scattering boxes across the floor.

Shizuka and their mother both saw him off at the train station, although his mother, still upset from their earlier argument, hung back, silent, as he hugged his sister good-bye.

"I'll see you in a week, 'kay Sis?" he said, squeezing her tightly.

"One week," she agreed. Pulling back, she smiled at him. "And then we go to America in a little more than a month!"

"And we get to see Yugi and everyone. I can't believe it's been two years since we've seen him," Jounouchi shook his head. "Been way too long."

His train was announced and he let go of his sister and went over to his mother. "Hey Ma, it was a good graduation party. And… thanks for everything."

She nodded and blinked, then suddenly gave him a hug. "I love you, Katsuya. Remember that."

"I know, Ma," he said.

"You take care of her when she gets there."

"You know it."

"Okay, then. Have a good trip back."

He nodded, then turned to give Shizuka one more squeeze. "I'll pick you up at the train station next week."

"Mm-hmm. See you then, Big Brother."

When he got on the train, he found a window seat where he could see them standing on the platform. Shizuka waved at him through the window and he waved back. As the train pulled away from the station, he sat back in his seat, smiling. Eleven long years, and now there was only one week left to wait. One more week until she finally came home.

-END-